Ukraine Funding at Impasse over Immigration

Happy Wednesday! If you’re running for president and asked whether you’ve ever been on Jeffrey Epstein’s jet, the best answer you can give is “no, of course not.” The second-best answer you can give is “I was on Jeffrey Epstein’s jet one time.” The third-best answer you can give—the one Robert F. Kennedy gave Fox News’ Jesse Watters last night—is “I was on Jeffrey Epstein’s jet two times.”

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said Tuesday Israel would consider another “temporary pause” in its war against Hamas in exchange for the release of more of the 137 remaining hostages taken by the terrorist organization. At a fundraiser yesterday, President Joe Biden blamed Hamas’ refusal to release its remaining female hostages for the breakdown of ceasefire negotiations, and condemned the “unimaginable cruelty” of the terrorist organization for using rape and torture as an instrument of their October 7 attack. Meanwhile, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on Tuesday pushed further into Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, where Hamas leadership is believed to be hiding. Yaron Finkelman, commander of the Israeli military’s Southern Command, described Tuesday as “the most intense day since the beginning of the ground operation, in terms of terrorists killed, the number of firefights, and the use of firepower from the land and air.”
• Job openings fell to 8.73 million in October, the Labor Department reported Tuesday, marking a 6.6 percent decline since September and indicating that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes are cooling the labor market. The numbers represent the lowest mark in nearly two-and-a-half years, and brought the ratio of open jobs to available workers to 1.3 to 1. The hires rate ticked down from 3.8 percent in September to 3.7 percent in October, while the quits rate—a sign of workers’ confidence in their ability to find new employment—remained at 2.3 percent.
• The House Ways and Means Committee released a report on Tuesday purporting to show that then-Vice President Biden used email aliases and private email addresses to communicate with one of his son Hunter’s business associates hundreds of times. IRS whistleblowers provided the committee with the relevant metadata showing 327 separate instances of communication between 2010 and 2019, with the majority occurring during Biden’s time as vice president. A search warrant is required to access the content of the exchanged emails.
• Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama announced on Tuesday that he would end his blanket hold on military promotions—a one-man boycott originally launched to protest the Biden administration’s military abortion policy. The hold applied to hundreds of pending promotions, and had recently come under fire from several of Tuberville’s GOP colleagues. The Senate unanimously approved more than 400 military promotions just hours after Tuberville lifted the block.
• House Financial Services Chairman Patrick McHenry, who served as speaker pro tempore after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster earlier this year, announced on Tuesday his intention to retire from Congress at the end of his current term. “Through good and bad, during the highest of days and the lowest, and from proud to infamous times, the House is the venue for our nation’s disagreements bound up in our hopes for a better tomorrow,” the North Carolina Republican wrote in a statement. “There has been a great deal of handwringing and ink spilled about the future of this institution because some—like me—have decided to leave. Those concerns are exaggerated. … There are many smart and capable members who remain, and others are on their way. I’m confident the House is in good hands.”

Running Out of Money and Time

While the statement, “There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment,” may technically be true for any number of issues facing lawmakers on Capitol Hill today, White House budget director Shalanda Young was referring specifically to U.S. funding for Ukraine in a letter to Congressional leaders earlier this week. Previously appropriated aid to the embattled country, she said, will be gone by the end of the year. “We are out of money—and nearly out of time.” 

Despite the dire warnings of dwindling days and missing money pots, Congress doesn’t seem to have made much progress on passing additional funding for Ukraine since President Joe Biden first introduced his supplemental funding request in October. Republicans appear to have reached broad agreement—even in a political moment when GOP in-fighting seems to be the norm—on insisting any Ukraine aid be paired with the imposition of stricter border security measures. But making aid to the war-torn nation dependent on …

As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our full 1,688-word story on negotiations over additional Ukraine aid is available in the members-only version of TMD.

Worth Your Time

• As tributes to the late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor continue to pour in, Patti Davis—daughter of former President Ronald Reagan, who nominated the justice—points to an episode in O’Connor’s life that has slipped under the radar but is no less worth celebrating. “She spoke with rare candor about how Alzheimer’s disease plays out—with its heavy responsibility and complex ethical issues—within the private confines of a marriage,” Davis wrote in a guest essay in the New York Times. O’Connor talked openly about how her husband’s diagnosis impacted her work—she would often take Mr. O’Connor to the office—and in 2005 announced she would retire from the court to care for her husband full time. “My father had died two years before, and during the decade of his illness, I paid close attention to what other people chose to share about Alzheimer’s. There was a notable silence about placing a family member in a facility designed to provide safe, appropriate care. I so admired Sandra Day O’Connor’s openness, and I imagined the thousands of people in similar situations who felt gratitude that someone was shining a light on a dilemma that so many suffer through in the shadows. In 2007, she went even further, allowing her son Scott to disclose that John had fallen in love with a resident at the facility—and that he did so with the former justice’s blessing. … She continued to visit him, though he no longer recognized her. People with Alzheimer’s lose connections, memories become frayed threads, but the desire for companionship runs deep—deeper than the disease.”

Presented Without Comment

Mediaite: Trump Tells Hannity He Won’t Be a ‘Dictator’ If Elected—‘Except For Day One’

Also Presented Without Comment

Bloomberg: Biden Says He Might Not Have Sought Reelection If Trump Weren’t Running

Also Also Presented Without Comment

NBC News: White House Interns Demand a Middle East Cease-Fire in Letter to Biden

“Our decision to intern for your Administration was driven by our shared values and the profound belief that, under your leadership, America has the potential to be a nation that stands for justice and peace.”

Toeing the Company Line

• An Indian murder-for-hire plot, the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a preview of tonight’s GOP debate. Kevin was joined by Mary, Jamie, Chris, Mike, and Drucker to discuss all that and more on last night’s Dispatch Live (🔒). Members who missed the conversation can catch a rerun—either video or audio-only—by clicking here.
• In the newsletters: Nick took aim (🔒) at the progressives (still) supporting Hamas.
• On the podcasts: Sarah joins Jonah on The Remnant to discuss Hunter Biden’s alleged influence peddling and consider what a second Trump term would look like.
• On the site: Drucker reports on why GOP presidential have been hesitant to bring up Trump’s legal troubles, Michael Rubin analyzes Henry Kissinger’s legacy in South Asia, John Hart looks at Nikki Haley’s possible path to victory in the GOP primary, and Jonah opines on George Santos’ fate.